Sunday, June 5, 2011

I know it's been a while but we've done some fun stuff.....

This is a Mama Duck sitting on her nest of a dozen eggs by the pro shop entrance

Ok , so it's been a month almost since my last post and for being late I sincerely apologize. The golf schedule has been busy and we've been working hard to make Indian Lakes Resort look the best that it can. The grounds crew has planted flowers all around the property and I feel we've got a great display for our guests. The weather provided a few setbacks. As an example it was 92 here yesterday and on Thursday last week the high was 49. Then there's the rain: Between 5/23 and 5/30 we received 5.5" of rain which is more than our monthly average for May (4"). So there you go.

Remember what Mark Twain said: "Everyone complains about the weather. No one ever does anything about it"

Planting flowers has taken up much of our spare time throughout the last two weeks and we still have a few spots yet to go. I anticipate we will be able to finish before the end of this coming week.

Planting flowers is not all we do, even though you might think it by these pics. We have been doing some stuff out on the golf course too.

The red line indicates how far the sand has encroached in this bunker over the last 7 years

Another, longer view of the same line

A view of the same bunker with all the sand cleaned out edged back to original lines

Cesar Chavez, Nicacio Hernandez and Jose Araujo did a nice job cleaning out this bunker and finding the original edge. We will be performing this process on as many bunkers as we can this year because BOY do they need it. Ideally we'd replace bunker sand in all bunkers every 5 or so years (nothing lasts forever) but we do as much as we can every year. This week we will install new gravel, subsurface drainage and sand. Pics on that will follow, for sure.

That's Dennis West under there painting the trim on 'The Turn'

Angel Vazquez brushing dew off tee boxes

Another view of the same

Jose Quintanilla and Jose Rivera dragging fairways with a chain inside a hose

Israel Rodriguez, Jr dew whipping greens

As you might have figured out by now I take dew removal pretty seriously. The reason is that the longer grass leaves stay wet (referred to as 'leaf wetness' by plant pathologists and guys like me) the more likely disease incidence will occur. By removing the dew first thing in the morning as best we can we are able to delay the onset of symptoms of various turf diseases like the following:

Pythium blight (a particularly devestating disease)

Brown Patch which is unsightly but recovers quickly given the right environment and treatment

Our main target: Dollar Spot!

Dollar Spot is responsible for roughly 75% of the fungicide applications on turf in the world. If left untreated it will kill some serious grass. There are good preventive measures to take and chief among them is reducing the period of leaf wetness which we do through a variety of methods: dew dragging, wetting agents to suppress dew and provide more even moisture in the soil profile, tree trimming to allow more sunlight in shaded areas, adequate fertility etc. By employing some of these tactics we are able to stretch our fungicide application frequency a little further and, more importantly, save money. Don't look on our fairways today as dollar spot came on in a big way. Our last treatment was on 5/11,12 so we saw some excellent control. Gotta go spray again, I guess!

I will leave you with a picture of my daughter, Molly, who just had enough at the zoo a couple weeks ago. She put her head down like that and we couldn't get her to keep it up any better. She is 6 months old now and BOY do I wish I knew where that time went! I also will be better about posting more frequently but no promises on how frequent. Thanks and have a great week!